Archive for the ‘High Museum of Art’ tag

What does the future look like? Perhaps no consumer product has endeavored to answer this question in quite the same way as the concept car, which has traditionally existed to give consumers an often-hazy glimpse into both the future of transportation and the future of society. A new exhibit opening next month at Atlanta’s High Museum of Art, Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas, will take a closer look at both the process of design and at 17 revolutionary concept cars that presented the future to an astonished public.

Syd Mead’s two-wheel concept.

Ken Gross, consulting curator for the Dream Cars exhibit, said he admits to being heavily influenced by the GM Motorama shows he attended as a child. In choosing materials for the exhibit, Gross wanted to give a sense of the design process instead of focusing merely on the finished product. Though the exhibit will feature concept cars, it will also include supporting materials such as artist’s renderings and scale models, each a necessary step in the design process. A glimpse at Syd Mead’s “Gyroscopically Stabilized Two-Wheel Car” shows a dramatic vision of a future that never quite came to pass, yet manages to look far better than the present we’re living in.

Included among the exhibits will be Paul Arzens’s “L’Oeuf Electrique,” or “Electric Egg,” a concept created out of war-time need for practical intra-city transportation that didn’t burn fossil fuels. Arzen, an artist and industrial designer with two previous concept automobiles to his credit, created the battery-powered aluminum and Plexiglas bubblecar in 1942 to meet his transportation needs in a Paris under Nazi occupation. With a claimed range of 60 miles on a full charge (at an average speed of 44 MPH), the diminutive commuter car proved ideal for urban use, delivering Arzen freedom from wartime fuel shortages and rationing. Though L’Oeuf was never formally displayed as a concept car and never put into production, it did predict both the bubblecar trend of the 1950s and the electric urban car movement that is gaining increasing traction in Europe today. On loan from the Musée des Artes et Métiers in Paris, France, L’Oeuf is making its American debut with the Dream Cars exhibit.

Ghia’s 1955 Streamline X “Gilda.” Photo by Michael Furman.

Innovation in concept cars can take many roles. The Buick Centurion, which appeared in 1956, favored a rear-view camera over side-view mirrors, a trend that’s starting to re-emerge with designers today. Though side mirrors will likely remain a fixture for quite some time (thanks to DOT regulations), back-up cameras will soon be incorporated on all new automobiles sold in the United States. Adaptive cruise control is another common feature on modern automobiles, yet the 1959 Cadillac Cyclone XP-74 concept predicted this trend with its innovative (if dangerously protruding) range-sensing Dagmars.

Bertone’s 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero. Photo by Michael Furman.

Postwar Italian coachbuilders and their flair for the dramatic are well represented. Examples of Italian style include Bertone’s 1954 Alfa Romeo Berlinetta Aerodynamica Technica 7 (B.A.T. 7), an aerodynamic masterpiece with pronounced and inverted rear fins that were reportedly inspired by the folded wings of a bat; Ghia’s “shaped-by-the-wind,” turbine-powered 1955 Streamline X “Gilda”; Pininfarina’s 1970 Ferrari 512 S Modulo, often called the “wildest concept ever created” for its low roofline and sliding cockpit entrance; and Bertone’s 1970 Lancia Stratos HF Zero, a futuristic wedge design that would go on to form the basis of an extremely successful sports and rally car.

The influence of aircraft design is obvious throughout the exhibit, but nowhere is this more evident than with the 1948 Tasco. Designed by Gordon Buehrig, the man behind the Cord 810′s design, the Tasco (an abbreviation of The American Sports Car) was designed to offer an affordable American alternative to British sports cars from manufacturers such as Jaguar and Morgan. It was Buehrig who made the connection between sports cars and aircraft, and the Tasco sports its aeronautical influence in designs ranging from a cockpit with wraparound glass to the fully shrouded wheels at all four corners. Seeking a backer to put the Tasco into production, Buehrig approached both automakers and aircraft manufacturers (which, Buehrig reckoned, would be looking for new production in the postwar years), but none showed an interest in building the unconventional lightweight sports car.

GM’s Firebird I XP-21 concept. Photo by Michael Furman.

Another concept with obvious ties to aircraft design is the 1953 General Motors Firebird I XP-21, which goes so far as to sport a prominent vertical stabilizer, vestigial wings, a sharply pointed nose cone and a Plexiglas canopy covering a single-seat cockpit. The enormous exhaust port gives a clue to the Firebird’s unconventional turbine engine, a design that held much promise for automakers in the 1950s and 1960s. Though the Firebird I would go on to influence two additional Firebird concepts, the cars themselves were far too radical a design to see production.

Dream Cars: Innovative Design, Visionary Ideas will run from May 21 to September 7 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta Georgia. For additional details, visit High.org.